UVM and college sports from the Burlington Free Press sports department

UVM pays price for basketball success

This is the price the University of Vermont’s athletic department will pay for success, especially in basketball.

It will lose younger, talented coaches to higher profile programs. That’s the ultimate bottom line for producing a winning team in a mid-major conference.

It’s happened before in women’s basketball, when Cathy Inglese built the Catamounts into a league power and departed for Boston College and when Pam Borton left UVM for a stopover at BC en route to Minnesota.

Now, Sharon Dawley is leaving Patrick Gym for the University of Massachusetts, a step up the coaching ladder after directing the Catamounts to an America East championship and an NCAA first-round victory this season.

And it might happen with UVM men’s coach Mike Lonergan, who has attracted some attention for leading the Catamounts to a league championship and an NCAA berth.

Dawley’s departure is understandable though disappointing for her UVM team and fans. It is also a compliment to the UVM athletic program under the leadership of the director of athletics, Dr. Bob Corran. Massachusetts’ pursuit of Dawley confirms Corran’s assessment of Dawley as a potentially fine head coach when he hired her.

As long as UVM basketball remains a power in America East, UVM will be renting a coach for a few seasons with every expectation that if the athletic director has chosen correctly, the Catamounts will remain a winning program as well as a stepping stone to the next level. That’s not as terrible as it sounds; the alternative is that no one is interested because your coach and your program don’t perform.

It’s not quite the same in hockey. In that sport, UVM is much closer to the nation’s elite teams than its basketball teams are. Hockey East is a major conference, not a mid-major.

Certainly, if the vacancy arises, Kevin Sneddon could be seduced by the facilities and salaries offered by a Boston College or a North Dakota, but the gap between UVM and those programs is considerably narrower than that between its basketball teams and the ACC, Big Ten, etc. (Note: In a recent interview, Sneddon told me he loves UVM and the community, has no desire to leave and plans to stay “as long as they want me.”)

Now, Corran must scour the country for the next Inglese, the next Borton, the next Dawley who will maintain UVM’s prominence in America East; his track record indicates he has a pretty good chance of succeeding.

As for Coach Dawley, there’s really little else to say except thank you and the best of luck to you and UMass … unless you should play UVM in some future NCAA game.

7 Responses to UVM pays price for basketball success

Thank you and Good Luck! Dawley. Hope you have a better luck than Keith Cieplicky (The other Women’s BBall coach who bolted to greener pastures i.e. Syracuse). He didn’t fare very well there. I find it funny when I see these “over ambitious” coaches who think they deserve to be in a better league after compiling couple of wins with a MAJOR help from couple of very talented girls at America East level. How much was the UVM Women’s basketball success due to #3 Courtnay and #4 May? In my opinion, a lot.

Yup, was afraid of that. Where do Bill Self, and Mike Anderson come from (current Kansas and Missouri head hoops coaches)? From schools like Vermont. It’s rare for a major school to find/luck into a guy like Frank Martin (Kansas State), who is almost like a coaching savant, without that midmajor coaching experience.

Good luck to the coaches moving on, and good luck to the AD finding new finds.

I noticed the article on Lonergan stated that no new schools “have been granted permission” but doesn’t say that no new schools have asked for permission to speak to him. Am I just splitting hairs or did he not release that info? Thanks for all the good info.

Vermont had a chance, shortly after Fogel became President, to shift conference alignment. The ACC, Big East and others were undergoing major re-alignment, leaving holes in mid-majors everywhere. Given Fogel’s background at LSU, I thought UVM might try to move to the A-10, but that was purely speculation on my part. Of course, the A-10 loses coaches just as fast as the America East…

Of course the coaches do it with great players. They get hired because they find the great players to make the programs successful, not because they recruit bad players and make them good. I would argue that leaving for a bigger school, getting more money and having higher profile is not “over-ambitious,” it’s just ambitious.